Paul's College Letters Show Love of Ayn Rand
Greg Sargent reports:
In the letters, Paul questioned whether government should have any role in combatting discrimination and bigotry -- something that will surely resonate with his latter-day questioning of the Civil Rights Act -- and wrote worshipfully about Ayn Rand. He also cast doubt on whether government should, or can, define or try to achieve gender equality in the workplace, even as he suggested such equality is a worthy goal. And he showed hostility to government efforts to force companies to be consumer-friendly.
The letters, which are all right here, don't contain anything terribly damaging, but they do suggest Paul's antipathy towards government has been something he's nursed since college years. However, they also show that he wrestled with questions about politics and government at an early age, and opposed discrimination in any form, even if he was ambivalent about whether goverment should do anything to stop it.
In a 1983 letter about the Equal Rights Amendment to The Lariat, the paper at Baylor University, Paul wondered whether government should pass any laws to combat discrimination:
"Should we enact laws that say "Thou shall not be prejudiced in business transactions," and then hope that the courts interpret such laws in a rational manner? Or should moral questions such as discrimination remain with the individual? Should we preach in order to bring about change, or should we compel?"
In that same letter, Paul also offered a rebuttal to a professor who had argued for equality of wages regardless of gender:
"Equality? Since when have any two people ever been equal?...
Have you some magical equation to determine equality in work? The answer must of necessity be a resounding "no!" Equality is a thing of the mind, originated, conceived and promulgated on a subjective basis."
However, Paul made it clear that he opposes discrimination in any form, arguing that "all must agree that bigoted discrimination is detrimental to the peaceful interaction of different sexes and races in the marketplace." And he held out hope for the advancement of women, but through "voluntary cooperation."
"Women inhabit virtually every sphere of our economic lives without the ERA," Paul wrote. "Change comes slowly, but it does come."
Paul spokesman Jesse Benton chalked up the letters to Dem desperation. "It is sad that Democrats are so desperate to prop up Jack Conway's failing campaign that they are digging up 30 year old College Op-Eds," he said. "This race is about repealing Obamacare, preventing tax hikes and fighting out of control debt and spending by Conway's liberal allies in Washington."
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